“A worn coin carries yesterday in one hand and tomorrow in the other.”

  William David Crockett.

  He tightened his grip on the knife and forced himself to breathe steadily. Only then did he notice something else; it was dark.

  Where were the motes?

  Their absence was unsettling, but it didn’t matter. He could see as clearly as if it were day and what could the darn motes do anyway?

  Focus!

  One of the greys, a female, stepped forward, breaking from the group.

  She placed her weapon on the floor then stood. Showed him her hands. No weapons but in her long fingers was cradled a small cylindrical object.

  It was silver and gleamed faintly in the starlight. She held the object out toward Davy, a clear gesture of offering.

  Davy straightened and lowered the tip of his knife. Slightly.

  The greys stood motionless, watching intently, their faces unreadable.

  “Well, ain’t this somethin’,” Davy muttered.

  He stepped forward and took the thing with a shrug.

  It was cool to the touch, faint grooves running along its surface. As his fingers brushed them, the cylinder vibrated in his hand. It was a slow vibration that seemed to match the beat of his heart.

  He looked at the grey then back at the cylinder. It felt alive, somehow, like it was waiting for something.

  “So… now what?” he asked, looking the grey in the eye.

  It’s hairless face expressionless, as best he could tell.

  It pointed to its ear, pulling out an identical object and pressed it back in. It then pointed at Davy and pushed a finger into its ear. The meaning unmistakable. Davy frowned, turning the object over in his hands.

  “You serious? This goes in my ear?” he asked.

  The grey cocked its head to one side and simply stared back, waiting.

  Davy shook his head and put the cylinder in his ear with a sigh.

  The grey immediately issued a short series of clicks and grunts. As she spoke, he heard a voice in his ear.

  It asked, “What is your name?”

  He was speechless. Recovered and pointing to himself said, “Davy.”

  “Davy? Mean what?”

  “Ain’t got no meaning. Davy’s just Davy. Me Davy. Plain and simple. You got a name?” he asked pointing.

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  Her reply was a series of clicks and coughs. The decoder in his ear stuttered before spitting out gibberish.

  “Well, that ain’t gonna work.”

  And so it went on.

  She followed him everywhere, pointing to things, asking about everything. Slowly, over the next few days, the voice in his ear made more and more sense until eventually they could talk freely.

  “What does your name mean, anyhow?” he asked.

  She paused, as if unsure whether to continue, “It means the patient one who teaches the children.”

  He chuckled; her face creased in what he assumed to be a smile. “Reckon I’ll call you Rebecca.”

  Others came up to him. Asked questions, and then very quickly he could talk with any of them about almost anything.

  It was something to do with the decoder learning.

  “More ringtail magic,” he said to Rebecca.

  “No, not magic. Science.”

  She noticed that he wore a token at his wrist.

  A worn silver dollar. Its edges softened with age. Its surface bearing the faint marks of all the times Davy toyed with it, especially when recounting his home.

  The coin gleamed dully in the light. A relic of another age, yet judging by the way he constantly fidgeted with it, the coin was bound to Davy in a way that felt like much more than chance.

  It was tied securely around his wrist, through a crude hole. The silver dollar hung from a braid of interwoven threads, dyed in deep, earthy reds, sky-blues, and sun-warmed yellows.

  The colours had faded some, but the careful knots and intricate patterning told a story of patience, tradition, and meaning.

  The braid was tight, woven with the deliberate skill of hands that understood the weight of time and heritage.

  Rebecca recognised this and though it was a small thing, its presence was steady. Something that grounded him.

  The metal was cool against his skin, and at times; when the wind shifted or the light dimmed; it almost seemed to pulse, as if remembering things long past.

  Rebecca pointed to the braid, “Where did you get it?

  Davy choked up.

  He’d carried the silver dollar with him for as long as he could remember. He paused, remembering.

  His father had given it to him when he was still a boy growing up in Tennessee.

  He had pressed it into his palm one evening by the fire, telling him, “A man ought to carry a piece of silver. Not for barter, but as a reminder; of where he’s been and where he’s going. This is now yours, as it was my fathers. He gave it to me and his father gave it to him.”

  The coin had travelled with him through war. Through hardship and through the long road west. He remembered. The coin remembered.

  He had it at the Alamo, tucked into his pocket when the walls fell. And it had come with him when he awoke in this strange new world.

  The braid was another story. More memories, deeper, more painful.

  He hadn’t always worn it.

  That had come later, tied to his wrist by the Rebecca back home, on the morning of their marriage.

  The weave of coloured threads had been hers.

  Made in the quiet moments between battles, as she waited. A piece of her quiet, gentle world in a world of difficulty and suffering.

  “For luck,” she’d said. Her voice steady but her hands uncharacteristically hesitant.

  Davy had accepted it without question, willingly. Feeling the careful craftsmanship in the tight weave.

  There was meaning in it; she was a part of it though she hadn't explained, he knew enough not to ask.

  The colours spoke of history. Of lineage. Of a people who passed knowledge. Not through writing, but through the things they made with their hands.

  He had seen similar braids among the Comanche back home in Texas, worn by warriors and storytellers alike. It marked those who were part of something greater than themselves.

  Now, as he stood at the edge of something so different from war or frontier, the coin and the braid remained with him. A tether to the past, an anchor in the present, and perhaps; though he did not yet understand it; a key to his future.

  The two of them, sat and watched the sun drop behind the standing stone from the crag near the cave. It had become something of a ritual for the two of them.

  Sometimes he felt he could see the strange glyphs pulse faintly across its faces. Symbols that made his skin crawl and the motes gather like moths to a flame.

  But that was impossible, the stone was too far away to see that sort of detail.

  They were joined by a growing flock of flyers who Davy dutifully fed each night. Rebecca berated him for feeding them. “They need to get their own food, not rely on you,” but he’d ignored her, feeding them anyway. And she secretly enjoyed the ritual.

  Each was quiet in their own world. Their thoughts and energies, as different as the coloured motes that danced around them.

  Davy had been thinking about his wife and family. Thoughts he returned to a lot, especially when near Rebecca and her gentle way of teaching.

  Her thoughts were in this world. The decoder had explained that Rebecca meant ‘one who binds people together, a moderator, a matriarch’.

  She needed to know more, the explanation seemed… incomplete. She touched his arm, her large black eyes narrowing slightly.

  “Why... Rebecca”? she asked touching her chest, above her heart. “Why did you give me the name Rebecca?

  He shrugged. “What I called my wife when only the two of us were together. It was her mother’s name.” Then after a pause, he added, “Seemed fittin’.”

  Her heart missed a beat, and she caught her breathe.

  The gift of his mother’s name. He’d paid her the ultimate compliment whether he knew it or not; bound her to him.

  She looked away, then excused herself.